Global Warming deniers

i'll use this article as a jumping off point. it's an interesting read about why Conservatives deny Global Warming.

yesterday i posted a discussion about an article claiming that the Earth is cooling and that carbon dioxide is good for the environment. it was sent to me by my step-father, who is getting to be famous here on A/N. he is a staunch Consevative, a Birther who thinks that Obama wants Anarchy, and an evolution and climate change denier.

he genuinely believes that the Scientific community is duping the world into believing in Global Warming so they can continue to get funded and keep their jobs. i sent him articles from NASA - he rejected them, since NASA is in Obama's pocket. i sent him articles from decorated climate scientists from Berkley - he wouldn't even read them b/c Berkley is a liberal think tank. instead, he accepts the theories put forth by unknown internet bloggers or a single Physicist who happens to work with the Heartland Institute.

sigh.

when i point out the fallacies of his sources, he ignores them and sends me another article by an equally insignificant source. when i debunk that i get an email that says "global warming is hooey". talk about a discussion stopper.

there really is no way to convince someone whose mind is made up. i never try to convert someone to Atheism - it's impossible, and honestly why bother? but i think it's our duty as citizens to try to educate the ignorant on important issues like Climate Change and Evolution. too bad that often the same people who are deeply Religious are the same ones who deny Science. and their minds are made up equally regarding both God and Science.

Replies to This Discussion

When someone has bought lunacy, Reason is lost on them. You can lead a horse's ass to water, but you can't make it drink.

Its funny how they can make claims such as "its a natural cycle" and such, when scientists predicted the warming increase back in the 80's and I was a kid. I remember being 10 years old having to explain the concept of "greenhouse gas" you my aunt who asserted "No, they think that all the pollution make the atmospher bigger, making it closer to the sun".

If you make a prediction that what's happening now will cause something else to happen in the near future and it comes to fruition, then its a lame argument that the effects are merely a natural fluctuation. Sorry, this just pisses me off.

I call all this the "scientization" of politics. Attacks on science and scientists are an effort to advance a political agenda, not an effort to better understand science or the risks it uncovers. The tobacco industry did it when scientists linked cigarettes to cancer. The lead industry tried to discredit a scientist who found that lead exposure hurt children's cognitive abilities.

"The International Organization that he refers to is the UN subsidiary and we know where the UN is on climate change. This guy being a Nobel Prize winner makes me chuckle as I recall that our leader won the Nobel Prize as well, so that doesn't carry much weight."

Let's try to show staunch believers how they are being tricked and disempowered by corporations. Compare corporations to the big impersonal governments they fear, use the metaphor of scary government to comprehend scary out-of-control corporations, which are the new power players using politicians and even governments as puppets. They are individualists. Yet they don't get how their individual power is being stripped away by lying, manipulative 1% power players. They need to see that their trusted authorities are callously using them, blinding them for profit.

Once someone goes to conspiracy theories to explain away contradictory evidence, there isn't much you can do. it's even worse if their position is tied into a lot of identity issues (being a good Republican,e tc.).

You might find this ebook useful though--The Debunking Handbook. It goes into the psychology of denialism and presents approaches that might be more productive than just piling on evidence. It's good for more than just climate science too.